CPJ urges Moroccan king to reform media restrictions

C/o His Excellency Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United States
‎

1601 21st Street NW‎

Washington, D.C. 20009‎‎

Via facsimile: ‎202-265-0161‎

Your Majesty,

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of your ascent
to the throne, the Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express our
disappointment with the continued use of the courts to suppress freedom of
expression. International human rights groups praised Morocco before your ascension to the throne for having made significant steps toward the rule of law. Unfortunately,
just a few years later it was among the 10 nations worldwide where press
freedom had deteriorated
the most.

The government has consistently used the judiciary to settle
scores with critical journalists and failed to initiate a press law that would
end the criminalization of freedom of expression.

Rising attacks on critical journalists--including jail
sentences and court rulings that impose crippling fines and strip journalists
of the right to practice their profession--led CPJ to send a fact-finding mission
to Morocco
in 2007. High-ranking officials, including former Prime Minister Driss Jettou,
told the CPJ delegation that Moroccan authorities would do their best to
promote and protect press freedom and that a less restrictive press law would
soon be passed by parliament, following "broad consultations" with media
professionals.

Yet, to date, the number of jail sentences and excessive
fines handed down to critical journalists in defamation cases is still on the
rise, and journalists and human rights lawyers continue to deplore the absence
of an independent judiciary, which even former minister and current Prime
Minister Abbas Al-Fassi acknowledged to be the casein a 2007 interview with Al-Massae, the country's leading
daily.

For example, on July 10, more than 20 dailies and weeklies were
published without editorials to protest recent court decisions imposing heavy
fines on three dailies and a financial monthly for defamation. The most
outrageous of these verdicts was issued on June 29 when a Casablanca court orderedAl-Massae, Al-Jarida Al-Oula and Al-Ahdath Al-Maghrebia to
each pay a fine of 100,000 dirhams (US$12,484) and damages of 1 million dirhams
(US$125,213) to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Many journalists and human rights lawyers told CPJ that the
main threat hovering over independent journalism in Morocco is a lack of judicial independence.
"The real problem does not stem from the restrictive press law, but mainly from
the judiciary itself, particularly when the Executive Branch is behind a court
case filed against a journalist," a prominent human rights lawyer told CPJ.

The distribution of the July 15 issue of the French daily Le
Monde was delayed and the French weekly Le Courrier International for
the week of July 9-15 was banned, reported French and Moroccan papers. Le
Monde carried a critical opinion piece by award-winning journalist Aboubakr
Jamai, former editor of the Moroccan weeklyLe Journal Hebdomadaire, in which he described your reign as characterized
by a "war against independent journalism fuelled by bans, judicial repression
and advertisers' boycotts." Jamai was forced into exile following a politically
motivated and record-breaking defamation ruling
in 2006. The banned issue of Le Courrier International had republished
an article previously run by Le Journal Hebdomadaire titled, "King
Mohammed VI, as rich as ever," alongside a new cartoon deemed defamatory by
Moroccan authorities.

In 2007, we asked you to
institute seven specific measures to reform the way the media and the
government interact. Unfortunately, to date all of those measures remain
unfulfilled, including the decriminalization of defamation. We urge you again
to instruct authorities to initiate new legislation that would abide by
international standards for freedom of expression and turn the page on jailing
our colleagues or silencing them through crippling fines. Freedom of
expression, a cornerstone of democracy, cannot be protected under a restrictive
press law or when the independence of the judiciary is not fully guaranteed.

Thank
you for your attention to these matters. We look forward to your reply.